Birmingham City manager Gianfranco Zola has confirmed he is planning to rest some of his senior players as his side travel to Newcastle United on Wednesday evening.

Zola has vowed to field a strong team for the FA Cup third round replay at St James' Park but he will use the opportunity to rotate his squad.

Captain Michael Morrison and top scorer Lukas Jutkiewicz could drop to the bench with both players carrying niggling injuries ahead of the game at Blackburn Rovers at the weekend.

Birmingham City's Michael Morrison

Zola explained: "It’s a tough place to go but I will make some changes because we also have a very important game on Saturday and so I have to try to change some players especially because we have one or two players that have little issues physically and I want to preserve them .

"But still, as we did in the first game we are going to put a strong team out on the pitch.

"One of them is Michael Morrison. He has a groin problem which he has had for a month, so if we have an opportunity to give him a rest we will do that.